• Latest
  • Trending
mental health

Why Bigotry Is a Public Health Problem

November 26, 2018
jesus statue Christ the Redeemer

Why Is There Christianity If Jesus Was Jewish?

September 21, 2023
JoAnne Epps

Temple University Acting President JoAnne Epps Dies Suddenly on Campus

September 20, 2023
UMC Bishop Minerva Carcano in a 2008 file photo

UMC Bishop Minerva G. Carcaño Suspended, Faces Church Trial

September 20, 2023
doctors

Just 2 Percent of US Doctors Are Latina. These Women Want That to Change.

September 20, 2023
COGIC Presiding Bishop J. Drew Sheard

Head of Major Black Christian Group Backtracks on Mormon Partnership, Apologizes for Causing ‘Discontent’

September 18, 2023
Slavery memorial at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Christian Seminary Founded by Enslavers Thankful for Forced, Unpaid Labor

September 18, 2023
Kirk Franklin and Richard Hubbard

Kirk Franklin Finally Finds His Birth Father After 53 Years

September 18, 2023
Pastor Kevin Smith

Pastor Kevin Smith Is First Black Man in SBC Org’s History to Serve as Chairperson

September 18, 2023
vehicle car

Here’s How to Donate a Car to Charity and Write It Off as a Tax Deduction

September 13, 2023
Tony Evans and Carla Crummie engaged to be married

Dr. Tony Evans Engaged to Former Pastor’s Wife and Widow Four Years After Lois Evans’ Death

September 12, 2023
Haiti

Christians Plea for Prayer, Help Amid Haiti’s Surging Gang Violence

September 12, 2023
Coco Gauff prayer

Coco Gauff Talks Faith After US Open Win: I Don’t Pray for Results; I Pray for Strength.

September 12, 2023
Faithfully Magazine
Cart / $0.00

No products in the cart.

  • About
    • Advertise
    • Submit Content
    • Give Via PayPal
  • Q&As
  • Specials
  • Subscribe
  • Shop
  • Events
    • Community Events
    • FM Live Q&As
  • Black Christian Content
  • Log In
Donate
No Result
View All Result
  • About
    • Advertise
    • Submit Content
    • Give Via PayPal
  • Q&As
  • Specials
  • Subscribe
  • Shop
  • Events
    • Community Events
    • FM Live Q&As
  • Black Christian Content
  • Log In
No Result
View All Result
Faithfully Magazine
Home Health

Why Bigotry Is a Public Health Problem

FM Editors by FM Editors
November 26, 2018
in Health, Opinion & Analysis, Wellness
Reading Time: 6 mins read
0
mental health
39
SHARES
ShareTweetPin It

By Ronald W. Pies, Tufts University

Over a decade ago, I wrote a piece for a psychiatric journal entitled “Is Bigotry a Mental Illness?” At the time, some psychiatrists were advocating making “pathological bigotry” or pathological bias – essentially, bias so extreme it interferes with daily function and reaches near-delusional proportions – an official psychiatric diagnosis. For a variety of medical and scientific reasons, I wound up opposing that position.

In brief, my reasoning was this: Some bigots suffer from mental illness, and some persons with mental illness exhibit bigotry – but that doesn’t mean that bigotry per se is an illness.

Yet in the past few weeks, in light of the hatred and bigotry the nation has witnessed, I have been reconsidering the matter. I’m still not convinced that bigotry is a discrete illness or disease, at least in the medical sense. But I do think there are good reasons to treat bigotry as a public health problem. This means that some of the approaches we take toward controlling the spread of disease may be applicable to pathological bigotry: for example, by promoting self-awareness of bigotry and its adverse health consequences.

RelatedArticles

doctors

Just 2 Percent of US Doctors Are Latina. These Women Want That to Change.

September 20, 2023
covid-19 vaccines

Activist Misuses Data to Make False Claim That Covid Vaccines Killed 676,000

September 1, 2023

In a recent piece in The New York Times, health care writer Kevin Sack referred to the “virulent anti-Semite” who carried out the horrific shootings at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh on Oct. 27, 2018.

It’s easy to dismiss the term “virulent” as merely metaphorical, but I think the issue is more complicated than that. In biology, “virulence” refers to the degree of pathology, or damage, caused by an organism. It differs from the term “contagious,” which refers to a disease’s communicability. But what if, in an important sense, bigotry is both virulent and contagious – that is, capable of both causing damage and spreading from person to person? Wouldn’t a public health approach to the problem make sense?

The harm to victims and to haters

There is little question among mental health professionals that bigotry can do considerable harm to the targets of the bigotry. What is more surprising is the evidence showing that those who harbor bigotry are also at risk.

For example, research by psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Leitner has found a correlation between explicit racial bias among whites and rates of circulatory disease-related death.
Explicit bias refers to consciously held prejudice that is sometimes overtly expressed; implicit bias is subconscious and detected only indirectly.

In effect, Leitner’s data suggest that living in a racially hostile community is related to increased rates of cardiovascular death for both the group targeted by this bias – in this case blacks – as well as the group that harbors the bias.

Writing in the journal Psychological Science, Leitner and his colleagues at the University of California Berkeley found that death rates from circulatory disease are more pronounced in communities where whites harbor more explicit racial bias. Both blacks and whites showed increased death rates, but the relationship was stronger for blacks. Although correlation does not prove causation, clinical psychology professor Vickie M. Mays and colleagues at UCLA have hypothesized that the experience of race-based discrimination may set in motion a chain of physiological events, such as elevated blood pressure and heart rate, that eventually increase the risk of death.

It’s unlikely that the adverse effects of discrimination and bigotry are limited to blacks and whites. For example, community health sciences professor Gilbert Gee and colleagues at UCLA have presented data showing that Asian-Americans who report discrimination are at elevated risk for poorer health, especially for mental health problems.

But are hatred and bigotry contagious?

As the adverse health effects of bigotry have been increasingly recognized, awareness has grown that hateful behaviors and their harmful effects can spread. For example, public health specialist Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish and family physician Dr. Neil Arya, in an article titled “Hatred – A Public Health Issue,” argue that “Hatred can be conceptualized as an infectious disease, leading to the spread of violence, fear, and ignorance. Hatred is contagious; it can cross barriers and borders.”

Similarly, communications professor Adam G. Klein has studied the “digital hate culture,” and has concluded that “The speed with which online hate travels is breathtaking.”

As an example, Klein recounted a chain of events in which an anti-Semitic story (“Jews Destroying Their Own Graveyards”) appeared in the Daily Stormer, and was quickly followed by a flurry of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories spread by white supremacist David Duke via his podcast.

Consistent with Klein’s work, the Anti-Defamation League recently released a report titled, “New Hate and Old: The Changing Face of American White Supremacy.” The report found that,

“Despite the alt right’s move into the physical world, the internet remains its main propaganda vehicle. However, alt right internet propaganda involves more than just Twitter and websites. In 2018, podcasting plays a particularly outsized role in spreading alt right messages to the world.”

To be sure, tracking the spread of hatred is not like tracking the spread of, say, food-borne illness or the flu virus. After all, there is no laboratory test for the presence of hatred or bigotry.

Nevertheless, as a psychiatrist, I find the “hatred contagion hypothesis” entirely plausible. In my field, we see a similar phenomenon in so-called “copycat suicides,” whereby a highly publicized (and often glamorized) suicide appears to incite other vulnerable people to imitate the act.

A public health approach

If hatred and bigotry are indeed both harmful and contagious, how might a public health approach deal with this problem? Drs. Abuelaish and Arya suggest several “primary prevention” strategies, including promoting understanding of the adverse health consequences of hatred; developing emotional self-awareness and conflict resolution skills; creating “immunity” against provocative hate speech; and fostering an understanding of mutual respect and human rights.

In principle, these educational efforts could be incorporated into the curricula of elementary and middle schools. Indeed, the Anti-Defamation League already offers K-12 students in-person training and online resources to combat hatred, bullying, and bigotry. In addition, the Anti-Defamation League report urges an action plan that includes:

  • Enacting comprehensive hate crime laws in every state.
  • Improving the federal response to hate crimes.
  • Expanding training for university administrators, faculty and staff.
  • Promoting community resilience programming, aimed at understanding and countering extremist hate.

Bigotry may not be a “disease” in the strict medical sense of that term, akin to conditions like AIDS, coronary artery disease or polio. Yet, like alcoholism and substance use disorders, bigotry lends itself to a “disease model.” Indeed, to call bigotry a kind of disease is to invoke more than a metaphor. It is to assert that bigotry and other forms of hatred are correlated with adverse health consequences; and that hatred and bigotry can spread rapidly via social media, podcasts and similar modes of dissemination.

A public health approach to problems such as smoking has shown demonstrable success; for example, anti-tobacco mass media campaigns were partly responsible for changing the American public’s mind about cigarette smoking. Similarly, a public health approach to bigotry, such as the measures recommended by Abuelaish and Arya, will not eliminate hatred, but may at least mitigate the damage hatred can inflict upon society.The Conversation

Editor’s note: This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.


Ronald W. Pies, Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Lecturer on Bioethics & Humanities at SUNY Upstate Medical University; and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts University School of Medicine, Tufts University


Share This Post

Share via

Share This Post

  • Digg
  • Tumblr
  • Flipboard
  • SMS
More
  • Report
Advertisement
Ancestry US
39
SHARES
ShareTweetPin It
FM Editors

FM Editors

Faithfully Magazine is a fresh, bold and exciting news and culture publication that covers issues, conversations and events impacting Christian communities of color.

More Features

doctors
Wellness

Just 2 Percent of US Doctors Are Latina. These Women Want That to Change.

September 20, 2023
child labour, children, industry
Opinion & Analysis

Child Labor Is Now Legal in the US

September 1, 2023
covid-19 vaccines
Wellness

Activist Misuses Data to Make False Claim That Covid Vaccines Killed 676,000

September 1, 2023

Discussion about this post

Most Shared Articles

  • Can Money-Making Microgrids Empower Black Churches to Close the Clean Energy Gap?...
  • Kirk Franklin Finally Finds His Birth Father After 53 Years...
  • Dr. Tony Evans Engaged to Former Pastor’s Wife and Widow Four Years After Lois Evans’ Death...
  • Coco Gauff Talks Faith After US Open Win: I Don’t Pray for Results; I Pray for Strength....
  • Newark Pastor Timothy Huff Left in Critical Condition After Being Shot in Home...
  • Churches Asked to Ring Bells in Remembrance of Little Girls Killed in Birmingham Church Bombing...

From The Archive

Breaking in Is Hard to Do: ‘Pitch,’ Jessica Mendoza & Women in the Church
Inspiration

Breaking in Is Hard to Do: ‘Pitch,’ Jessica Mendoza & Women in the Church

by Karen Gonzalez
November 11, 2016
paul bowen
Clippings

Ex-Youth Pastor Paul ‘Acton’ Bowen’s 1,000-Year Sentence for Sex Crimes Stands

by FM Editors
July 14, 2021
bible in library

Texas School District Orders All Bibles Removed From Library Shelves

by FM Editors
August 17, 2022
women
Bible

How Jesus Embraced and Elevated Women

by FM Editors
June 14, 2018
quilt
Inspiration

Grannie, Black Quiltmaking, and the Gift of Hope

by Adam Hubert
March 20, 2018
Facebook Twitter Youtube Instagram
Faithfully Magazine

Faithfully Magazine is a news and culture publication centered on Christian communities of color.

Recent News

  • Why Is There Christianity If Jesus Was Jewish?

Category

© 2023 Faithfully Media, LLC (Owner and Operator)

  • News
  • Opinion & Analysis
  • Inspiration
  • Web Exclusives
  • Specials
  • Shop
  • Events
    • FM Live Events
    • Community Events
  • Black Christian Content Links
  • About Us
    • Advertise With Us
    • Submit Content
    • Give Via PayPal
  • Log In to Your Faithfully Magazine Partner Account
No Result
View All Result

© 2023 Faithfully Media, LLC (Owner and Operator)

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms bellow to register

*By registering on our website, you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.
All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Share via

Share This Post

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Reddit
  • Email
  • WhatsApp
  • Copy Link
  • Tumblr
  • Digg
  • Flipboard
  • SMS

Add New Playlist

Log In

Sign In

Login with Facebook
Login with Twitter
Forgot password?

Don't have an account? Register

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Back to Login

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Accept

Add to Collection

  • Public collection title

  • Private collection title

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. Visit our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
Are you sure want to unlock this post?
Unlock left : 0
Are you sure want to cancel subscription?
Send this to a friend